This year a lot seems to be happening in the Italian REIF sector. First we had Elliott Associates launching tender offers for four different funds, and then York Capital Management joined the party by offering €54/share (plus CVR) for Fondo Delta. It didn’t take long before a second interested bidder emerged who was willing to offer €56.70/share and on Monday the bidding war intensified with a third fund launching a tender offer at €65/share. I’m not exactly sure why there is so much interest in this specific fund, but I can’t complain. This offer is still at a 30% discount to the €92/share NAV, but it’s a huge improvement to the 50% discount Fondo Delta was trading at earlier this year. Despite that I don’t think I’ll tender my shares since I expect that simply waiting for the fund to liquidate will be better.
One fund that is making excellent progress in this regard is Valore Immobiliare Globale. The fund announced last Friday that it sold its Milan property for €26.8 million (equal to its appraised value as of 31 December 2015). This is a pretty big deal since the fund now only has two properties remaining with a combined value of €28.3 million. The announcement caused the stock the jump by 20%, but also in this case the discount to NAV remains big at 30%.
Disclosure
Author is long QFDI.MI and QFVIG.ME
have you ever looked at Aseana Properties (ASPL LN) that is trading at 50% discount to NAV and is currently in liquidation?
Yes I have, has been some time ago, but wasn’t really able to get comfortable with the valuations of some of the assets in the more troubled parts of Malaysia. The stuff in Vietnam and Kuala Lumpur looked good, but wasn’t so sure about the rest. And then there was a decent amount of debt I think, I not sure that was non-recourse or if it was cross-collateralized.